Sunday Morning Coming Down
My mother used to love to go to church. Sometimes the rest of the family didn’t make it easy for her to enjoy those times,…
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My mother used to love to go to church. Sometimes the rest of the family didn’t make it easy for her to enjoy those times,…
My mother used to love to go to church. Sometimes the rest of the family didn’t make it easy for her to enjoy those times,…
I have been reading a book lately about the problems inherent in the way people communicate with one another. The author describes how, in many…
This is a very special and important piece of writing for me, more important than anything I have written in a good long time. I…
This is a very special and important piece of writing for me, more important than anything I have written in a good long time. I…
Part of my misspent youth included several visits to the principal’s office. Now you young people would not understand such a thing a being a…
My mother used to love to go to church. Sometimes the rest of the family didn’t make it easy for her to enjoy those times,…
There have been a lot of changes around our house. The kids have all gone to college to take their talents for chaotic housekeeping, high…
I don’t think that there has ever been a case of fiscal Voo-Doo that I have ever known (except when congress is in session), as…
Chapter 1: The Stroke Little did I know as I crawled into bed that November 28th that upon rising the following day, my life was…
Chapter 1: The Stroke
Little did I know as I crawled into bed that November 28th that upon rising the following day, my life was going to change for the worse, forever.
I went to bed reasonably late that Wednesday night because I stayed up to watch Sportscenter. After all, it was the middle of the football season. I even drank a couple of beers and read a column that I was writing for the local weekly newspaper. I wanted to make sure it was free from errors before turning it in the next day. At the time, I was a practicing attorney in a small town, but I considered myself an "amateur journalist" only because I liked to write and was always a devotee of the printed word.
I went to bed sleepy but not exhausted and looking forward to a good night's rest and sleeping in until nine the next morning.
I was awakened early when I heard my wife stirring around getting ready for her teaching job at the public high school. I was glad I didn't have to get up at that hour and rolled over to get some extra shuteye. As tired as I was, I didn't feel rested at all. My sleep was fitful and unsettled.
When my alarm went off later, I couldn't believe how lethargic and sluggish I felt. Usually, I would reach out for it very quickly as the buzzing sound it made was like fingernails on a chalkboard. But today, my arm felt heavy, almost weary. It took some conscious effort to bring my arm up to shut the damn alarm off. I was bewildered by it. That old clock had been with me for the past ten plus years, but this morning it looked odd. Like I hadn't seen it before. It was as if I was looking at something new on the bed stand. I was confused by how to turn it off, but I fidgeted with the buttons until it ceased to chirp. I woke up perplexed and bewildered, but most of all annoyed.
I put my feet on the floor and stumbled, and reaching for the bed stand to steady myself, I ended up spilling the glass of water on my bed stand and knocking the alarm clock over. I was irritated, exasperated, and angry, almost to the point of rage over my clumsiness. I am not a morning person, but my enraged manner that particular morning surprised even me.
This morning, my ox-like awkwardness led me to mutter, "son of a bitch” over the spilled water. But "son of a bitch” was not what came out of my mouth. Instead, something garbled, like, mmmfffaabbbllll" was all that came out.
I remember thinking: "Whoa! Did I have too many beers last night? I can't even talk right! Should I go back to bed?"
I went to the bathroom to urinate, wash my face and hands and brush my teeth. When I turned around to walk back into the bedroom, I noticed the dog bed.
I had two dogs. They are both small dogs. A miniature dachshund and a mini dachshund/chiuwawa cross. Less than 25 pounds of dog between the two of them together, and neither one very smart. They sleep together in a single dog bed on the bedroom floor. I like to keep the bedroom cool, and these are short-haired varieties, so they want to be covered up. They are well trained, and each night they waited for me to say "bed," and they would scamper off to their bed, and then I would cover the entire bed with their very own dog blanket.
In the morning, they are trained not to stir or come out until I tell them it is okay or lift the blanket. Usually, that is the first thing I do. But today, something was different. They were not in their bed and snuggled under the covers like they were supposed to be, but were on their front paws and peering out from beneath their blanket. They had never done that.
Then I realized that I had broken their routine for them. Dogs love routine. They are comfortable in their habits. The rote structure gives the dogs a chance to lead because the dog knows where he is going and is allowed to be out in front. And they love that. Usually, I get up and tell them "okay," or I remove their covers – and then the dogs race down the stairs together neck and neck. By the time I get down the stairs, they are jumping at the sliding patio door so that I can let them out. They are the leaders.
But here's the thing -- I didn't remember that I even had dogs until I saw their bed. And even then, it took me a couple of seconds to sort it all out and remember the whole morning routine. That's why they were peering out at me from beneath the covers. I had broken their routine. But it was strange, how could I forget them? They were part of my routine too.
I chalked it off as not enough sleep and a beer or two before bedtime.
The trip down the stairs was surreal. The dogs are usually way out in front of me, leading the way and racing with each other to see who gets to the door first. But this time, they walked on either side of me, looking up at me the entire time.
As I walked out of the bedroom, I felt an unusual sense of disassociation. I felt a peculiar; detachment from my normal cognitive functions. It was as if I had forgotten the layout of my own home. As I rounded each corner, I recognized where I was – but did not know ahead of time what lay around the next corner or beneath the stairs – in my own house! Not until I got there to see it for myself could I have told you the layout of my own home. It was like exploring my own home but knowing instinctively where to turn at each corner.
When we reached the sliding glass doors where I routinely let the dogs out, they didn't seem to want to go outside. They usually can't wait to get out there, their bladders full from an entire night, eager to smell new scents and ready to engage their archenemy, Mr. Squirrel.
When I opened the door, rather than running outside, the dogs stayed on either side of me, all the time looking up at me. This was really strange, and being somewhat unwilling to put up with their strange behaviors because I had awakened in such an irritable state. I nudged them outside with my foot. But instead of exploring the lawn for a place to do their job and looking for new scents, the dogs just stood on the other side of the glass and looked up at me. Little did I know – the dogs were trying to protect me, and they knew that something was wrong before I did.
As I was nudging them out the door, I tried to say "go on," or "do your job," or something else that the dogs would understand as a command. All that came out of my mouth was garbled "mush." It was a mmmfffllbbing moment again.
My mind and body connection were no longer in sync. I thought my thinking was lucid, but I felt detached from what was normal to me. How bizarre!
I let the dogs back in, and they walked alongside me wherever I went. I was more than a bit nervous and anxious as I retraced my steps back to the bedroom. As I approached the stairs to go up, I noticed my walk was no longer fluid – my feet had no finesse or grace, instead, I felt like every step I took was deliberate and methodical, like I had to think about every step, putting one foot in front of the other. I had to hold onto the handrail.
When I was back in the bedroom, I stood in front of the mirror and really tried to speak clearly. I would carefully enunciate each word as I looked in the mirror. But I couldn't utter a sound that made sense or could be distinguishable as a word or a phrase. The dogs remained on either side of me, looking out into the next room as I was mugging in front of the mirror. They reminded me of the lion statues that guard the entryway to the major libraries—one on each side of the entrance. But in my case, miniature ones as they stood guard for me.
I knew enough about the symptoms to realize I was having a stroke!
I had to call someone for help. But I had no idea where a phone was in my own home, only that I needed one. I looked at the bed stand for a phone. There was none. I looked in the family room, none there either, then I found a wall phone in the kitchen. I picked the receiver up and saw a grid of buttons. The buttons confused me. What should I push? The network of numbers looked mysterious to me, like just a bunch of crooked, squiggly, and straight lines. Besides, how will I tell whoever answers what exactly is wrong with me? I can't talk.
I felt frightened and vulnerable. I knew that my mind was not sharp, and I was losing my edge more as the minutes ticked away. I was aware that I was missing even my simplest abilities.
I knew you could die of a stroke, and I knew I needed help, yet, I couldn't call for help on the phone because I couldn't speak, and the phone was useless to me in my hands. I knew that if I were going to get the help I needed, I would have to get it myself.
I put the dogs up in the laundry room, their regular ("routine") abode for the day, and remembered that they hadn't peed yet. It was strange to be thinking of in my near-panicked state. But I was lucid enough to realize that I would have to drive myself to the hospital if I was going to get the help I needed.
There was only one exit in the laundry room, and it opened to the garage where my car was parked. If you had asked me what kind of car I drove before I opened that door, I wouldn't have been able to tell you. Just like I couldn't say what room was around the corner until I saw it, it was only after I opened the door to the garage that the color and the make of my car became clear to me.
I didn't know it then, but my wife had made a mistake that turned out to be somewhat fortunate. When my wife left earlier, she left the garage door open. She never does this, especially when the weather gets cold, and this was the 29th of November. In Bismarck, North Dakota. She must have hit the garage door opener twice and re-opened it while she was driving off. I mention this because if it were not for this coincidence, I would never have gotten out of the garage because I wouldn't have had the slightest idea where the garage door opener was located.
I got in my car, backed it out, but didn't know how to shut the garage door after I had exited the garage. I knew there was something I needed to close the door and I searched the dashboard, pushed buttons, and turned knobs with no luck. I thought, "The hell with it!" (The garage door closer was on the visor, but I only searched the dashboard buttons.)
I could see what the hospital looked like in my mind's eye because both my mother and father had passed away there. I drove to the St. Alexis hospital in much the same way as I found my way through my own home. When I backed out of the garage, I turned the right way to the hospital. As I drove, I did not know what I would see around the next corner but yet as I turned each corner, somewhat instinctively, it felt familiar. I knew without conscious thought which way to turn, and I arrived safely at the hospital.
Chapter 2: The Hospital
But my journey wasn't over at this point. I had driven to the hospital entrance that was the most familiar to me. As I said, my father and mother both had their final illnesses at this hospital, and I was acquainted with the regular visitor's entrance. Still, I needed the emergency entrance, which was on the other side of the hospital.
When I arrived, I tried to get the information desk lady to help me, but I could not get a single cogent phrase out, and there were people behind me in line getting impatient and rude with me. So I left the information desk. I tried to stop numerous people for directions, but the fact that I had not shaved was unsteady on my feet, and I couldn't talk except for gobbly-gook coming out of my mouth – everyone thought I was a drunk or a derelict.
After stopping about 3 people or couples, I knew that I wasn't going to get any help there. So, I took off on my own to find that emergency room that I so desperately needed. I wandered around that hospital for more than an hour without finding the emergency room or, for that matter, anyone who would help me.
St. Alexis in Bismarck is not a large hospital like the ones in larger cities. It was a medium-sized hospital in a town populated by less than one hundred thousand. But it was a regional hospital that served a vast rural area. It was indeed big enough for me to get lost.
I wandered all over the place in that building. I entered rooms that were clearly off-limits to anyone not working there. More than a few times, I was ushered out of someplace where I did not belong, and every time I tried to explain my plight, I couldn't make the right words come out. My brain and my mouth were not in sync. Somehow, I knew I was looking for the emergency room. I had been in enough emergency rooms for myself and my children that I knew how to recognize it. But I had been there for more than an hour wandering around like the building was an intricate maze.
The frustration finally got the better of me, and when I passed an open door, I spotted some chairs. I went in, sat down, and the tears of frustration and fear began to flow. A receptionist was sitting at a desk, but I didn't see her as I walked in because she was behind a counter. But the lady behind the counter heard me sobbing. She couldn't think of anything to say other than: "Do you have an appointment with the lab."
I tried my best to answer but couldn't. At that point, I don't know whether I had scared that receptionist or that she felt sorry for me and didn't know what to do, but she left the room and came out with two lab technicians. They also tried to communicate with me, but all I could do was stutter and stammer. One of them asked if I thought I was having a stroke. I grabbed her hand and nodded my head. At last, I had somebody who communicated with me.
The lab techs locked arms with me and led me to the emergency room. I was less than twenty-five yards down a wide hallway from it. If I had kept going instead of being frustrated to the point of tears and looking for a chair where I could let loose of my tears, I would have run into what I needed and eluded me for nearly two hours. One of the two lab tech ladies explained that I was having a stroke to the admitting nurse. It took less than fifteen seconds to get me on a gurney and a doctor who was waiting for me in one of the rooms.
The care I received was phenomenal and first-class. The emergency room staff had enough presence of mind to pull my wallet out to see who I was. A "stroke advocate" came soon to see me while still in the emergency room and wanted to know who to notify. I couldn't utter a distinguishable word – so she brought in a phone book and said I could point.
I opened the phone book, and it looked like a dyslexic wonderland. It was hard for me to read, and as far as remembering the alphabet so I could find what I was looking for, a simple phone was as understandable as advanced calculus. But I had another incident of serendipity. This was my second lucky coincidence this morning. Apart from the open garage door – there was a picture of the Bismarck High School on the cover of the phone book. My wife worked as a teacher there. After a few guessing games and pointing at the picture, the advocate finally guessed that she was a teacher, matched my last name with hers, and called the school.
There were two female teachers there that had the same last name as mine. As luck would have it, they reached the wrong one at first and scared the hell out of her before they spoke to my wife. She didn't arrive until about late in the afternoon. I had already had a cat scan and an MRI by that time. My doctor came in about an hour after that and explained that I had had an ischemic stroke. There was a blockage in one of the vessels to my brain. The area that governs speech.
My layman's diagnosis had proved me right. I had a stroke. I was diagnosed with acute Aphasia, which is medically defined as "a loss of verbal understanding or expression." I suppose I should be glad that the "verbal understanding" was not a problem, but the "verbal expression" certainly was. I came into the hospital with no more ability to express myself other than to point.
Although I didn't really know quite what a stroke was, other than it could kill you and cause paralysis, the doctor explained it to me very well. A stroke is an injury to your brain. Part of your brain dies because it is not getting blood for a time. As explained to me, the brain tries to find new pathways for the neurons for those that were destroyed. But this takes some to establish those new pathways. I was working on my Aphasia, but I had a lot of damage to other cognitive functions, memory, and worst of all, part of the frontal lobe, which affects your decision-making ability.
The doctor also said that the blood thinner administered to me in the emergency room should be working that the brain is a wondrous thing. We have so many brain cells that when some of our brain cells are damaged, some other cells spring into action, and a new "path" is found for the neurons. Even though I didn't get help within two hours; (the window in which the symptoms of most strokes are reversible), there would be a good chance that with therapy, I should get much of my speech back and that I should be able to get a few words out right now.
I managed to say, with much difficulty, "how long?" He answered both questions that I had in mind. He said, "About a week in the hospital, but many months of therapy."
I immediately thought of the kindness that those two lab techs showed me. At the time, I was thankful and overwhelmed. I remember my first effort to talk when I was safely tucked into my hospital room after my catscan and MRI. My wife had arrived by that time, and after my initial hug and a few tears, I tried to talk, and again, thought of the two lab techs that had shown me such kindness. I wanted to do something for them. After about three or four tries, I tried to get out the word "flower." "Fllll…. flonnn … flooor … flossers."
"You mean flowers? You want some flowers? What about flowers?" my wife asked.
With much effort and deliberation, I got out the words, "senn flawrs."
My wife did not know who to send flowers to but had enough presence of mind to visit the emergency room and did a little detective work. She finally talked to the Stroke Advocate, and she told my wife that two lab workers had brought me into the emergency room. My wife came back and said two lab workers had helped me. She said: "do you want to send flowers to both those two?"
I nodded emphatically, and before the day was over, the two good Samaritans had flowers on their workstation. Every November 29th, I sent flowers to show my gratitude until I learned they had retired.
I have heard the adage of "kindness to strangers," but it didn't mean much to me until that day, November 29th, when I was the recipient of that kindness. From that point on, I understood completely what it meant.
It was many months of therapy. I had to learn all over how to talk again. Often times it was overwhelming and other times positively degrading. I had an advanced degree, a J.D. (Juris Doctor), and I was learning to speak with the same flashcards as I used in the second grade. You know, the ones where the teacher would flash you a card with a bunny rabbit on one side and the other side was the correct spelling of rabbit. But I didn't have to spell it; I just had to pronounce it. Do you have any idea of how degrading a person with 4 years of college and 3 years of graduate school is, having trouble pronouncing rabbit? This went on for 18 months.
I was angry, joyless, indignant, discouraged, full of self-pity, and depressed, bordering on suicidal. But with each plateau of learning, I became more hopeful and tolerant of the person I was to become. Not the glib outgoing person who was always quick with the jokes and the sarcasm, but the more introverted, thoughtful person who didn't speak unless he had something of value to say. This is one "value" where less is more.
I remembered what my dad used to say: "It is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool; than to speak up and remove all doubt." That was going to be my mantra from now on.
But this was only the first phase in what turned out to be a humiliation for the rest of my life. I went back to work too soon because the money was running out, and I failed because I could not speak well. An attorney's stock in trade was the ability to persuade, and you had to have a voice for that.
Chapter 3: "Looking Back" and Contemplation
I will never forget the first time that my law school class met. It was the day before actual classes started, and the Dean of the Law School was welcoming us. He told us that assignments were posted on the bulletin board, and tomorrow when we started actual classes, we were to come prepared. There were five classes for the "One L's." "One L" is what every law school calls the freshman class entering the toilsome and burdensome study of law. The "One L's" were to study Property, Contracts, Constitutional Law, Torts, and Criminal Law. But the last thing that the Dean told us before he let us out of that first meeting; and it will stick with me until I die: "Law school is potentially a million-dollar education; . . . and we are going to shove it up your ass a dime at a time."
Three years later and I was still there. I survived one of the most grueling experiences that college education has ever devised. The Socratic method makes for a demanding course of study. Sometimes I felt like the professors were doing just what the Dean had threatened. I had never been so robbed of sleep and family time in my life. We started with 127 students on that first day; two weeks later, we were down to under ninety, and we eventually graduated fifty-eight.
The washout rate was tremendous. In almost all cases, the student would just "disappear." I think it was the humiliation that they felt. I know for sure that if I couldn't "cut it," I just wouldn't show up for the morning classes. I would be gone before the first person said, "Where is he?" It would be too hard to face your fellow classmates. Many classmates left town in the middle of the night undetected.
Graduation finally arrived, and when I walked across the stage to pick up my Juris Doctor Degree and when I was subsequently sworn in as an attorney at law, they were among the proudest moments of my life.
So how the hell did I get here? Sitting in my old green pick-up 20 years later, with as many pills of any type as I could gather together and determined not to see any tomorrows. That, as noted legendary commentator Paul Harvey would say: "Is the rest of the story."
Frustration set in early on with my inability to make myself understood. I worried about my business. Who wants to hire a lawyer who cannot speak to a judge, a jury, an opposing lawyer, or even his own client!
After I was released from the hospital, I had a lot of additional speech therapy until the insurance ran out. Three times a day, but I thought it wasn't helping me. I was continuing with the painfully degrading flashcards from the 2nd grade. But my progress was painfully slow. I continued worrying about whether I would be forced to close my little law office. I had two great secretaries, and I wanted to keep them employed, and I was sure I could master the English language once again to keep them working and not have to lay anyone off.
I did not want to close the office where I had worked so hard for twenty years. I did not want to lay off the staff who had been so loyal to me. When I ran out of funds from the office account, I used my credit cards to keep the office open; when I had maxed out my credit cards, things went south in a hurry.
Because the decisions that I had to make were with damage to my frontal lobe, each of my decisions after my stroke were without the full benefit of that part of my brain, and most were terrible decisions. I had lost my moral compass. There was a lot of money in my trust. I knew it was wrong to "borrow" from a trust account, but I knew attorneys that had. I weighed that against having to close my office and telling two terrific ladies that they were out of work. Surely I could pay it back before anyone would notice.
But I wasn't getting that much better despite the countess months of speech therapy, and I still wasn't satisfied with the speech patterns. I stammered, I stuttered, and I had word retrieval problems. I lost about 70% of my clients before I could even return to the office. A practice that was once bustling with business was as quiet as a church on New Year's Eve. I continued to lose clients even after I came back because I could not make myself talk fluently and make myself understood fully. I could not make a living for myself or my loyal staff with what walked in the door. But there was still money in the trust account, and I "borrowed" from it heavily.
Soon, I realized that I borrowed (stoled) enough money to keep my business afloat that I would have to work ten or more years to pay it all back. Unfortunately, that was not enough to pull the reins on my out-of-control behavior. I kept fooling myself, and when I finally figured out that it wasn't going to work for me, I resigned that I would spend some time in prison for my malfeasance. Although I was resigned and knew that prison time was in my near future, I tried to put it off as long as possible and contemplated suicide as my last act on earth.
As with most financial crimes and cover-ups, I was caught on a routine audit. I didn't want to go to prison – but the real thing I couldn't live with was the humiliation. I had to save myself from utter humiliation and my family from the shame they would have to endure for a lifetime of me as a father and a brother.
Chapter 4: My Ignoble Purpose
So, this is what brought me to be sitting in my old green pick-up for what was to be my ignoble and despicable purpose.
I had diminished my life to the clearest common denominator. I was very calm as I sat in my old pick-up. It is an oxymoron, but I was terrified by my calmness. It was actually upsetting because I thought the choice I had made should be made in the throes of irrationality or hysteria.
In the last few weeks, a transformation occurred. It became more apparent that those I cared most about would be better off without me. I had to convince myself of that fact, that all my loved ones would be better off if I were dead. That was the only thing that made sense to me. And it did. Those I would leave behind would have to go through vicarious disgrace, shame, and humiliation simply for being related to me. It was grossly unfair.
It wasn't a decision that just came to me in some kind of a flash or a resolve that came to me one morning. It was more like a metamorphosis. Each week, I became more disgusted with the lies I had to tell to my family and my own treachery. After I was on the "wrong side of the grass," I thought that it seemed like the only way out. I just hoped that everyone affected by my actions would try to understand my action and feel that there was some kind of atonement.
I went down to a favorite spot on the lake near where I had grown up and kept my boat. I took one last walk along that lake that held so many great memories for me. Memories of water skiing and putting on a water ski show for the community with some of the best skiers in town. It was a sport I just loved – skimming over the cool water behind a boat. Memories of my worn-out Keds pedaling my old bike down to the lake on a hot day to go swimming. Swimming in a lake is far superior to a pool, and we kids knew that instinctively.
The day that I had chosen had an astonishing clearness. It was a calm and tranquil day by Dakota standards, where the prairie winds were almost constant. It was a sweltering day beneath a clear blue sky and a bright sun that made the heat all the more torrid. A judge's order had locked up my office because of misconduct. Tomorrow, the paper would be published on the street and in everyone's mailbox with the sordid story. I couldn't face the humiliation that it would bring. So, I chose this day to end it.
I had gathered every vial of pills I had in my own medicine chest and every pill that my deceased mother had kept in her medicine chest. I don't know why I didn't throw them out years ago. Mom threw out nothing. She was a child of the great depression. There were muscle relaxers, pain pills, barbiturates, blood pressure meds, blood thinners, and medications and pills in which I knew nothing. I was prepared to lower the flags on all of my tomorrows to half-mast.
I had narrowed the field down to only two choices; I could either swallow the myriad of pills that had in my possession and bring the relief of death or endure the humiliation of being exposed as a thief and a fraud.
I had thought about suicide many times in the last years. I knew what I had become. Those thoughts had taken tyranny over my dreams, and I found that even my daydreams seemed unshakeable in their oppressiveness. It left me exhausted and miserable most of the time. I wavered between sustained worry and paranoia. I couldn't bear that my children would be ashamed of me, my family would feel betrayed, and that I had besmirched and disgraced my father's good name. I really didn't think that there was any other clear choice. I had decided to turn the lights out on all of my tomorrows on my own. But at the same time, I wondered if I would have enough "grit" to do what needed to be done.
I walked the shoreline for what I knew would be the last time and breathed the fresh lake smells that were so familiar to me. Smell is the most reminiscent of times gone by, the most nostalgic of the five senses. I inhaled the essence of the lake deeply. I became aware of the sunlight that tortured the grass on which I walked, the blades scorched by the summer heat, and drought took on a feral thirst. I was acutely aware of the irony of the cool water on my left side and the scorched and thirsty grass on the right side.
It was time to get it done. I remember thinking that I wanted to get the deed done before changing my mind. For some strange reason, I found that to be sort of funny. A bit of black humor. I returned to my pick-up truck, and walking through the grass and the weeds to that old green vehicle that had served me so well for nearly a quarter of a million miles; I wondered whether I had picked up any wood ticks. I hate wood ticks. But I thought it wouldn't matter in a short while. Another black humor moment.
It is peculiar the way we prepare when we think that the last moment has arrived. A ritual of some sort. I had pictures of my son and daughter lined up on the dashboard, which would be the last images I saw. I made an inventory of the letters I had written to be found easily. I wrote my son and my daughter, begging their forgiveness and telling them that they would be much better off. I wrote to two friends – one who I knew could take over the things that had to be done after my death, and one to the only good friend who would have anything to do with me after the humiliating story came out. I was surprised by the ritualistic manner that I was adopting. I was a person who usually didn't like to make plans and was known as a guy who often flew by the seat of his pants.
When I thought all was in order, I opened a bottle of beer while I emptied all of the pills into a small cigar box I had brought along, where they became intermingled. I didn't know one pill from the other and didn't give a damn. I finished the bottle of beer while I was emptying the vials. I opened another bottle and wondered how many beers I would down of the 6-pack I had brought before the pills would do their work. I was downing the pills like they were candy. I was drinking the beer as fast as I could, thinking that would enhance the effect I got and so desperately needed. I remember opening a third bottle of beer.
I was aware of the blood rushing in my ears, my heartbeat, and the tiny pulses in my wrist as I slipped into unconsciousness. Nobody actually knows the exact moment when consciousness slips away, and that was just the way it was for me. I had some moments of awareness, and then I wasn't aware anymore. You can't put your finger on the exact moment. The metamorphosis was complete, and I would no longer have to deal with my loss of self-esteem, dignity, and respectability.
But I was not going to get the result I had hoped. The harbormaster at the marina noticed that my old green pick-up had been there for a long time, and there wasn't any activity going on where I had parked. He investigated and found that I was slumped over the wheel and called the sheriff, who called the hospital and was taken there by helicopter. How could I fail at something so simple as taking my own life?
The next thing that I remember was a nurse whispering in my ear that she was going to remove my catheter. I found out later, three days had passed, and they were about to transfer me to the Psych ward. I had some recollection of my bed being wheeled down a wide hallway and thinking that my life was going to include disbarment from the profession I loved, deep humiliation, and yes, prison. I didn't understand how I could have possibly failed in such a simple task as taking my own life. They wheeled me into the elevator for my next stop, and as that big door closed upon me, I realized that my life was never going to be the same. I was going to trade my life as a promising attorney for the life of an inmate and then to an ex-con. Forever.
Cookie | Duration | Description |
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cookielawinfo-checbox-analytics | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". |
cookielawinfo-checbox-functional | 11 months | The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". |
cookielawinfo-checbox-others | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". |
viewed_cookie_policy | 11 months | The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data. |
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